google+ hangouts

The one thing I really struggle to put into the recycling bin, is the toilet roll tubes, I can always think there is SOMETHING we can make with them, whether it’s planting seedlings in them, or making these lovely bird seed feeders. They are so easy to make, and the kids are tickled to be using peanut butter, to spread onto the loo roll tubes, cra-azy eh?!

So simple to do… basically, spread the peanut butter on the toilet roll tube, and sprinkle the bird seeds over the tube, pushing the seeds onto the peanut butter ‘glue’.

We do find some peanut butter a little dry, so – do as you do with toast! – paste a little layer of butter on to the tube before you spread the peanut butter onto the tube.

Then, slip the tube onto a thin branch, preferably in view of the window. We love eating our breakfast and watching the birds eat theirs – we have a favourite chubby blackbird in the garden, will try to get a photo of the bird seed feeder in action!

T Shirt Yarn Pom Pom

We’ve all of us got an old T-shirt lying about don’t we? I had a very favourite, Breton Stripe T which had sadly come to the end of its life, and was just to scruffy to go to the charity shop, so we decided to DO something with it, and as we’ve gone a little pom-pom crazy this month, thought we’d have a go at the old classic – a T Shirt Yarn Pom Pom!

So, you could use a big pom-pom maker, or, like us, grab a couple of ‘donuts’ of cardboard, and have a go…

Step 1 – using a mug as a template, we cut two circular donuts, and lay them on top of each other.

Step 2 – cut your T-shirt into long strips to make ‘yarn’ and lay one piece of this yarn between the two donuts.

Step 3 – Wrap the T-shirt yarn around and around the donuts, and tie off the centre strip of yarn in a knot.

Step 4 – Push your scissors between the two donuts and snip around the circle as you would a regular pom-pom!

We love how this one turned out and will be collecting our old T-shirts to have a go and MORE T Shirt Yarn Pom-Poms soon!

W is for Whale – paper cup craft

Paper cups are a great asset to a store cupboard… you never know when the post school playdates may descend on you, and for this time of year, paper plates and cups are often safer in the garden for the al fresco dining that may take place!

They are also VERY handy for a last minute craft session, particularly if you are practicing your alphabet crafts – and all you need for this W is for Whale paper cup craft, is two paper cups, some parcel tape and a couple of googly eyes!

You will need:

Two paper cups
Parcel Tape
Googly eyes
Pipe cleaner (white or blue)
Hama or Perler Beads in an array of blues and white!

Instructions:

1) Using the parcel tape, stick the two cups together facing each other to create the body shape of the whale.

2) Wrap the parcel tape all over the body of the whale to cover it.

3) Fashion the whale’s tail from more parcel tape and attach to one end of the paper cup whale.

4) Do the same with the two front flippers, and attach just below the position on the eyes.

5) Add the googly eyes, essential in any paper cup craft!.

6) Pierce a small slit where the blow hole on the top of the whale’s body will be.

7) Push the pipe cleaners, or wires, into the hole, and add some Hama or Perler beads to look like water drops and you are DONE!

Inspired by the button cupcakes we created for swing tags for Mother’s Day, we found some thin wire and got busy with this button flower craft.

The wire needs to be quite a narrow gauge to make it ‘bendable’ for smaller fingers – and choose buttons within a sympathetic colour spectrum to make the flowers quite beautiful!

For this button flower craft, I found that the best way to do this is to arrange the buttons in the size order you’d like, ie, larger buttons at the back and then feed them onto the wire.

IMPORTANT – make sure you thread the wire through the buttons across the diagonal if there are four holes in the button, this way the buttons sit flat on top of each other – I cut a petal shape from some off-cuts of green felt to make the petals.

Pom pom clouds and button raindrops – we made these to hang from my son’s bedroom ceiling… coughs… they look nicer hanging against my bedroom wall though don’t you think?!

The giant pom poms are really straightforward to make, easier with tissue paper if I’m honest (we used crepe paper for these giant pom poms as we’d run out of white tissue paper) however, aesthetically they look great in the textured crepe paper.

The button raindrops are really effective, choose a variety of shades of blue, and string and knot them onto some blue yarn to hang from the giant paper pom pom clouds – lovely!

We are loving Paper plate flower crafts and experimented to make a paper plate flower fascinator! Experimenting with paper plate crafts have really inspired us this week, from cookie gift boxes to Paper plate flower crafts fascinators, if you’d like to know how to make this, read on!

This fascinator is made from just one paper plate… the flower in the centre, is made from the centre of the plate, and the two flowers with petals, are made from the two halves of the outer circle of the plate. If you would like to see more paper plate flower crafts, click the youtube image below to watch our Google+ hangout hosted by the wonderful Maggy at RedTedArt.com who made some simple paper plate nests for her pom pom chicks and the most beautiful woven paper plates too. Also present were Rebecca from herecomethegirls, with her paper plate daffodils, Emma with her mylittle3andme spiders and bird feeders, Cerys at RainyDayMum, and Anthea at ZingZingTree.

For full instructions on how to make a paper plate cookie gift box, click here, includes a very simple ‘how to’…

Button Crafts – eek and I’m in my element!

So with Mother’s Day looming, I thought we’d make some pretty button crafts gift tags for Grandma and Granny’s parcels as we won’t be with them on the day.

It’s a life-cycle thing too, as we have LOADS of buttons in our button box which belonged to my Grandma – we LOVE buttons in our house, and have spent hours picking through the buttons in the tin, each one having a special childhood memory for me, and now for my own children too!

Combining two of my favourite things, Button Crafts, and Cakes, I took some rather fetching paper cake cases and cut them down to fit some parcel swing tags I had lurking in the gift wrapping box. These would make great Birthday cards too – I just loved the idea of making the gift wrap special too… 🙂

Instructions:

1) Cut the cake case down to size. You should be able to get four out of one cake case.

2) Position all of the buttons where you want them onto the swing ticket.

3) Ideally take a photo for reference, we did this, so that we could remove them all, and glue them all back on in place – it’s a great way of getting the buttons exactly where you want them! Button crafts can be quite fiddly, so this is a great ‘cheat’!

4) Glue the paper case into position, I put mine over the top of the buttons, to give a more 3D effect.

You will need:

Instructions:

1) Roll the newspaper sheet diagonally from the corner, using the cocktail stick to get you started, so that the roll is nice and tight. When the cocktail stick starts to disappear inside the paper, gently pull it out, and continue to tightly roll the newspaper to create a long ‘stick’ – the first of MANY!

2) Flatten the ‘stick’ using a hard surface.

3) Taking your cocktail stick, start to roll the flattened ‘stick’ into a tight spiral, securing it with glue as you get to the end of the spiral.

4) When you have enough of these spirals, you can start to build up the pattern around the mirror – we found that the glue gun was the best tool for this!

You could also spray paint the spirals, however we like the newspaper spirals in their natural form!

We love a nice bit of rainbow bunting in our house…. oh, and a sewing machine. One that works anyway….(frowns in the direction of redtedart)

So I had this idea to make some colourful paper bunting with some left over paper triangles (don’t ask, I can’t bear to throw ANY scrap of paper away – even if it IS destined for the recycling!) And rainbow bunting sprung to mind… Avoiding the typical rotation of the triangles, we went with sewing down the MIDDLE of the triangle – and there you have it!

This is perfect for 17th March – St Patrick’s Day in our neck of the woods – if you fancy a #StPaddys party – would be a great decoration!

Who would have thought we would be making a fairy tale craft tonight – Fridays are usually our ‘film night’ after a full-on week at school.

HOWEVER, I was taken to one side by my son’s teacher on Thursday to discuss his behaviour – and we between us to set a reward system in place… sigh, just when I thought we were getting somewhere!

So, the plan is, a thumbs up from the teacher = one reward point. And so the Jack and the Beanstalk fairytale craft reward chart was invented. And he is really engaged with it so far – we found an old wooden shelf I’d been hoarding since our kitchen cupboard makeovers (11yo wanted me to write that if you don’t have a piece of board, a sheet of paper or card will do), and found a wiggly stick on the way home from school – and got busy!.

To get started, cut out your leaves – If you use the FREE printable here – gently stick the sheet to another blank A4 sheet with a low tack magic tape, and cut around the leaves. This gives you a printed leaf, and a plain white leaf. Place the plain white leaves in position on the board, and using them as stencils, put a little paint on a scrunched up piece of kitchen paper, and dab around the edge of the paper leaf to reveal a leaf shape.

Glue the branch of the fairy tale craft beanstalk onto your board (oh yes, I DID use a glue gun), and pop the green leaves somewhere safe. We used a CD sleeve, which we glued to the top of the board to make a pocket to hold the leaves. And rewarded the boy with his first ‘thumbs up’ leaf at the foot of the beanstalk – here’s to a completed beanstalk for Jack to climb up by the end of the week… Also on the blog today – how to make the Snow White Mirror.

If you’d like to see the finished fairy tale craft article, click the youtube link here, I got together with Missie Lizzie who talked magic beans, Anthea with her elves’ shoes, Kelly talked Rapunzel, and Maggy at Red Ted Art (talking three little pigs) who hosted a Fairy Tale Craft google+ hangout.